


Six and a Quarter

by larkscape



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Birthday Cake, Feelings, Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Space Cake is Hard and No One Understands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 19:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13666125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkscape/pseuds/larkscape
Summary: “Itoldyou. I need your help.”“Uh, yeah," Hunk says. "With what, though? Just saying ‘help’ doesn’t give me much to go on.”Keith glares at him some more. Finally, like it physically pains him to drag the words out, he says:“I need to make a cake.”-Shiro's birthday is coming and Keith has a problem.





	Six and a Quarter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GeniusCactus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeniusCactus/gifts).



“I need your help.”

Keith’s wearing his Serious Face. Hunk immediately panics.

“Is something wrong? Did Lance get clipped by the training dummy and now he’s bleeding out on the deck? Pidge didn’t run off on another stealth mission, did she? Where’s Coran?”

Keith’s eyebrows get, somehow, even more flat. “Hunk. No.”

Wait, he forgot; Keith always looks grim. That’s just his face. The only thing it means is that it’s Tuesday. (Heh, Space Tuesday. Is there Space Taco Tuesday? Should he start that? No, hold on, Keith asked him for help. Focus.)

“Don’t scare me like that, man. Okay, so what’s up?”

“I _told_ you. I need your help.”

“Uh, yeah. With what, though? Just saying ‘help’ doesn’t give me much to go on.”

Keith glares at him some more. Finally, like it physically pains him to drag the words out, he says:

“I need to make a cake.”

-

Keith hasn’t missed a single year since Shiro out-stubborned him into friendship back at the Garrison. There’s no way in hell he’s going to let a little thing like being light-years away from Earth on the run from an evil empire and subsequently lacking in Betty Crocker boxed mixes stop the tradition.

Shiro is getting his birthday cake, even if it means Keith has to wrestle with Altean food goo.

Besides, that’s why he enlisted Hunk.

-

Lance is just looking for a late-night snack, a little goo to hold him over, no big deal — but there’s someone in the kitchen.

Mission compromised. Abort: Y/N?

Nah, he needs his snacks. He's a growing young man and the maintenance of all this awesomeness requires fuel. Whoever's in there can just deal with it.

Then he hears a familiar, reassuring monologue.

“Hunk! Just the guy I needed! Tell me you've got something tasty in the works, I'm _dying_ for some green cheese—”

Hunk isn't alone.

Keith is next to him. They're standing over a blob that, if Lance tilts his head and squints, might be mistaken for a cake. Hunk is piping green-tinted goo like frosting along the upper edge, which is the only detail separating it from a particularly horrifying meatloaf.

Something very fishy is going on here.

-

The first time, Shiro supplied the cake himself.

“Here, I brought you something.”

Keith looked up from his astro navigation textbook to see Shiro leaning toward him, a smile hiding at the corner of his mouth, holding out a plate with a thick slice of triple-layered chocolate bliss. There was a flower made of frosting on the top.

“What?” Keith croaked, because what else were you supposed to say when Shiro the very attractive first-class cadet leaned over you with a plate full of decadence?

“Birthday cake. For you.” Shiro proffered the plate again.

“It’s, uh, it’s not my birthday.”

“No, I mean, it’s mine. So.” Shiro was turning a bit pink. “Just take the cake, Keith.”

Keith took the cake.

It was just as delicious as it looked.

By the time Shiro’s next birthday rolled around, he’d transformed in Keith’s awareness from Shiro-the-hot-pilot-cadet to _Shiro,_ the guy who preferred to spend his Friday nights in the empty planetarium making the constellations spin backward and who came up with the most awful puns from shuttle names and who could always tell when Keith needed silent company.

Keith smuggled a toaster oven into his room and almost started fires twice while attempting to bake a cake in it.

-

“It’s Shiro’s birthday?” Lance asks after he’s gotten clarification that not only is the blob of green Hunk’s carefully decorating a _cake,_ it’s a _special occasion_ cake. Or at least the trial run of one.

“Not today, but it’s coming up.”

“When? What’s the date?”

Keith huffs out an annoyed breath. (Wow, his surliness knows no bounds. Lance is still occasionally surprised by that.) _“Technically_ his birthday is February twenty-ninth, but we usually celebrate it the day before. And I have to get the cake right by then—”

“You mean _I_ have to get the cake right by then,” Hunk says.

“Well, _yeah—”_

“Wait a second.” Lance holds up a hand. “Are you saying that Shiro’s birthday is Leap Day?”

“…Yes?”

“And how old is he turning?”

“Twenty-five.”

This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to Lance. He starts some quick calculations. “Let’s see, last year was a leap year, so…”

“He’s six.” Hunk’s whisper is reverent. “Oh my god.”

Keith does not look impressed.

“No, Keith,” Lance says gleefully, “I don’t think you understand the implications here. Shiro’s only had six real birthdays! _Our fearless leader is six years old.”_

Keith glowers. “I hate you and everything you stand for.”

“Okay, six and a quarter.”

“Was that supposed to be an improvement?”

“Do you think we can get Allura to take us back to the space mall?” Hunk asks, because he is a good man who understands the important things in life. “We need some of those giant number candles.”

-

 _“Real_ birthdays,” Keith mutters to himself later. “What were all the other ones, then?”

-

Pidge is the sneakiest person on this ship. She _knows_ what it looks like when someone’s hiding something, and Hunk, Lance, and Keith are definitely hiding something.

And she intends to find out exactly what it is.

What she discovers when she finally zeroes in on the kitchen security cameras is Shiro’s Cake: Attempt Number Five.

“Is it supposed to look like this?” Keith asks, tipping the bowl of batter he’s stirring toward Hunk. Pidge can’t really see into it from this camera angle, but the look on Keith’s face is eloquent in its doubt.

 _“Yes,_ okay?” Hunk says. “Yes, it’s supposed to look like that. Stop freaking out, it’ll be fine.”

“But—”

“Oh my god, Keith! I have never met anyone who worries as much as you. _I_ don’t even worry as much as you, and I’m basically a champion worrier! It. Will. Be. Fine.”

Keith lifts the spoon from the bowl. All the batter lifts out with it in a perfectly bowl-shaped dome.

“…Huh,” says Hunk. “Never mind.”

-

Attempts Six, Seven, and Eight all go about the same. Even Hunk’s optimism is starting to flag.

He knows how to work the puppy-eyes, though, so he convinces Allura to take pity on them and let them try their luck at the mall.

The cake is important, okay? A birthday party will boost the team’s morale, and it might even ease some of the stress showing like hairline cracks all over Shiro's face. The guy needs to relax a little. It's not like the fate of the universe rests on their shoulders.

Oh, wait.

“He's just been so quiet lately,” Keith says, when they're staring with resigned despair at the soupy mess that is Attempt Number Seven. “I'm worried.”

(Late-night Baking Keith is a whole different person. He actually emotes. Lance would never believe it.)

“Me, too,” Hunk admits.

The point is, Hunk’s _invested._ He can’t let the cake win.

Attempt Nine is much closer to success.

-

Keith knew more than a year in advance that he wouldn’t see Shiro on his twenty-fourth birthday — the first leap year that they’d know each other for. Shiro would still be on his way back from the edge of the solar system when February 29th came around.

Still, when Shiro left for Kerberos, Keith promised to bake him a cake anyway.

“It’s tradition by now,” he said. His skills had improved since the first toaster oven attempts, at least enough to manage a reasonable boxed cake mix. Not gourmet by any stretch of the imagination but not a total embarrassment, either, and if he put jam between the layers, the result tasted almost like it came from a bakery.

“Eat it for me,” Shiro told him. “I’ll be living on freeze-dried rations out there. It’ll be nice to think that at least one of us is enjoying my birthday.”

Keith smiled at him, and Shiro smiled back, and a week later the ship took off under Shiro’s steady hands.

Months passed. Keith waited, studied, waited, pissed off Iverson yet again, aced all his flight simulations, and waited some more, while Leap Day inched closer.

Then the news came.

_Fatal crash. Pilot error._

Bullshit. Shiro was the best damn pilot the Garrison had ever seen. There was no error.

Keith threw the chocolate cake mix and the raspberry jam in the trash.

After that, he was in the desert where there was no cake mix, but there was no Shiro, either, so it didn’t matter much.

-

“No.”

“But look,” Lance says, “we found these cute teddy bears— I mean, I _think_ they’re bears— and silly kids’ hats and confetti and—”

It would be so great! A kids’ party for their six-year-old leader! Lance can see it now: jumping out from behind the chairs with streamers, balloons, teddy bears for everyone. They could even wear footie pyjamas if they got lucky on another supply run.

But Keith’s glare is implacable. Every word emerges like he’s chewed it down to the gristle.

“Shiro doesn’t like surprise parties.”

Lance sighs. He can recognize a hopeless fight when one stares him down. “Okay, fine. No surprises.” He sticks out his lower lip. Pouting is manly. “I still think we should wear the hats, though.”

“In that case,” Allura says, and hey, when did she get here? “Could I have one of the bears?”

They both turn to look at her, and she coughs. “The, ah, the mice. Would like something soft to cuddle.”

“Told you the bears were cute!” Lance tells Keith as he presents a bear to Allura. At least she’s got his back, even if Keith has zero sense of fun. Lance will take what victories he can get.

-

After everything, the crash, breaking Shiro out of the Garrison’s custody, the cave and the lion and the aliens and the _wormhole—_

After all of it, Keith and Shiro ended up sitting in the empty bridge, watching the stars drift past the castle. Everyone else was asleep, or at least hiding themselves away, and it was very quiet.

None of the constellations were familiar.

“Do you remember the planetarium?” Shiro asked.

“You can’t make the real ones run backwards, Shiro.”

“That’s not what I— I mean. I was just thinking that— we had no idea. The Garrison. We were never taught what to do if we made contact with another race. We were so secure in our own superiority, and then along come these ships and—”

“Shiro.”

“We were helpless. _I_ was helpless. Matt, and Sam, they’re still out there somewhere. Zarkon has them.”

Keith leaned his head on Shiro’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure what to say. There was nothing he _could_ say to ease that pain.

“I’m sorry I left you alone,” Shiro said eventually.

“You didn’t,” Keith replied, immediate. That was one thing he did know, had always known deep in his bones. “The Galra took you. Not the same thing.”

“And now…”

Keith pressed closer, bumped their arms together. “And now we fight back.”

-

Hunk has reached godlike status. He is Supreme Ruler of all culinary pursuits. Bow down before him.

Attempt Eleven is an unparalleled success.

“Hands _off,”_ he says when he catches Lance trying to grab a fingerful of the — delicious, incredible, _superlative_ — chocolate frosting. “If you mess up The Cake, you get to make the next one, and I won’t help you.”

Lance has seen every step of the process that lead them here. He won’t risk it.

The Cake has pride of place in the center of the counter. In a move that earns her a lifetime Best Person award, Pidge sets up a feed of the kitchen’s security camera straight to the heads-up display on Hunk’s helmet, so he can keep an eye on his creation even when they’re out of the castle.

He feels like he might have poured part of his _soul_ into that cake. Of course he’s protective. The crumb is elegant, dense but still bouncy. The fruit they’d settled on for the filling is basically a Space Raspberry. It pairs with the chocolate like the two were made for each other.

Keith had actually gotten a little weepy when he’d sampled it.

“Is it really worth all this trouble?” Coran asks. “Seems like a lot of fuss to go through for one little confection. Why, I could have whipped up a goo tart for you in two shakes of a snargle’s ear!”

“You are dead to me, Coran,” Hunk says, turning to shield the cake from view of blasphemers with his body.

And aw yeah, Hunk _knew_ there was a reason he’s so fond of Keith; the glare Keith trains on Coran evaporates the latter’s protests like a laser canon.

Operation: Shiro’s Birthday Party is go.

-

“He’s only a quarter of the way to his next birthday,” Lance argues, “so he should only get a quarter of a cake.”

“Sure, a quarter,” Keith says.

Lance knows his point is unassailable, but that was way too easy. He feels a premonition of doom.

Keith’s grin is made of razors. _“To himself._ Everyone else can fight over what’s left.”

-

If someone can make Shiro happy, then Keith is prepared to forgive a lot. Even Lance, if he has to.

Because Lance managed to find the number candles, and that’s worth forgiving any number of annoyances. Shiro is beaming to rival the stars at the great big wax 6 sticking out of the middle of his cake.

After Keith vetoed Lance’s stupid hats, Hunk found animal headbands and wouldn’t take no for an answer. (Not that Keith fought it very hard. Hunk has every right to silly headgear after he pulled off that raspberry and chocolate combination.) Keith, at Shiro’s insistence, is wearing cat ears. Shiro picked a pair of bright yellow antennae for himself, and they bob as he leans forward to blow out his gigantic, completely absurd candle.

He looks so pleased about it. Keith wants to hug him, or else shove his face in the cake — though Hunk would murder them both.

“Happy birthday, Shiro,” he says quietly, instead of doing either of those things.

“It’s not the twenty-ninth, though!” Lance says, and _damn it._ Why can’t he just leave well enough alone? “This one doesn’t count!”

Oh, that is _it._

“Screw you, Lance,” Keith hisses. “It counts. They all count. Don’t— you know what? His last birthday, his last _real_ birthday as you keep insisting, he was on Zarkon’s ship, fighting for his life! Did you ever think about that?”

Lance has gone a bit pale. “I didn’t mean…”

“Keith.”

“No, Shiro, I’m not finished. Look, I don’t care what everyone says about it, but this is _important._ It’s important to me. You should get to have a nice day every now and then. You deserve it. Just because we’re out here,” and Keith can tell he’s getting loud, but _really,_ “with crazy robot space lions and alien princesses, fighting a war against a ten-thousand-year-old evil space empire, at the far end of the universe, with no way to go home safely and _no freaking cake mix—”_

He breaks off. Everyone is staring. But _Shiro_ is looking at him all gooey and soft, and he doesn’t want that to stop.

He holds Shiro’s gaze and in a small voice, finishes, “—it doesn’t mean we’re going to dismiss your birthday.”

 _“Keith.”_ Shiro’s voice is thick. He opens his arms.

Keith crashes into him and holds on tight.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Shiro says, low, right against his ear.

“Same to you.”

-

Shiro insists that Hunk be the one to slice the cake, since he put in so much effort.

“Hey!” Keith says. “I supervised!”

“And a good supervisor knows when to reward his subordinates. Let Hunk cut it.”

Hunk is a benevolent soul. He gives Shiro exactly one quarter of the cake, just like they’d all discussed (and it almost doesn’t fit on the plate), then takes his own fair portion and leaves the rest to the wolves.

“Hunk, my man,” Lance says after his first bite, “oh my god. This is to die for. Literally. I think I might be dead. It’s too good. You’re going to make one of these for my birthday too, right?”

“Of course,” he replies, “but you’re helping.”

When even Coran the cowed skeptic moans with appreciation, Hunk knows he’s won.

He can make a cake out of _anything._ He is God-Emperor of Space Cake.

-

“Happy six and a quarter, Shiro,” Pidge says later.

“Thank you, Pidge,” Shiro replies with as much dignity as his bright yellow antennae will allow, which isn’t much.

The glare Keith shoots at her from where he’s laying with his head in Shiro’s lap is comparatively weak, and she’s built up an immunity anyway. Let him glare all he wants.

“Are you two ever going to kiss?” she asks mildly. Keith makes this fantastic sound, like a cat dropped in a bathtub. It’s the best noise she’s gotten out of him yet. “Or are you just going to keep having emotionally charged conversations followed by hours of public cuddling without saying anything about it?”

Shiro stares at her for a long moment, then leans down and smacks a noisy kiss on Keith’s forehead. When he straightens back up, his face is red but he’s grinning ear to ear.

Keith is perfectly still.

Shiro’s smile starts to go brittle around the edges.

Then Keith makes a needful sound as he scrambles upright, climbs into Shiro’s lap, and pins him against the back of the couch with his mouth. Shiro clings to him with both arms.

 _Finally._ That’s only been coming on for an eon. Pidge smiles to herself as Hunk whoops loudly.

“Watch it, Keith!” Lance shouts, laughing. “Don’t corrupt the innocent six-year-old!”

“You know, that reminds me,” Pidge says, turning an innocent look on Allura and blithely ignoring the two making out right next to her. Shiro's headband has slipped sideways and one of the yellow antenna bobbles is gently bouncing off Keith’s cheek. “Is it really okay for Shiro to lead Voltron? He’s six. Doesn’t Altea have child labor laws?”

Allura sputters. Keith deigns to remove one hand from Shiro’s hair for the express purpose of flipping them all off.

Shiro is too busy kissing Keith to even notice.

 


End file.
